I always feel better when “Barack is on the case.” “Barack Obama is on the case:

President Obama said the U.S. government will get to the bottom of what happened in the shooting….

If it was not, in fact, a jihadist attack, the administration will no doubt be more willing to delve into the details. UPDATE: One more thing–the idea of a lone gunman attacking a military base is intrinsically absurd. After the Hasan shootings, we learned that soldiers are generally prohibited from carrying weapons on bases. To my knowledge, those regulations have not been changed. Maybe it is time that we let our military personnel arm themselves so that they can mount a quicker and more effective response than dialing 911 and “sheltering in place.” FURTHER UPDATE: Apparently three people were murdered; the fourth decedent was the perpetrator, reportedly by suicide.” What Happened at Fort Hood?

We can thank Leftist Bill Clinton for this one. “The policy of preventing military personnel on base from carrying firearms has cost more lives, as an enlisted man undergoing mental health evaluation for PTSD opened fire at Fort Hood yesterday, killing 3 others, and wounding 16, before turning a gun on himself and making the death count 4. I am so angry that I can barely type. Trained warriors who know how to use weapons are denied the ability to defend themselves and become sitting ducks for those who evade the no-firearms-on-base rules, whether out of terrorism motives or mental health issues. Those to whom we entrust out national defense deserve much better.” Another slaughter of disarmed soldiers at Fort Hood

At Fort Hood, instructions were given to “shelter in place.” “One of the problems with shelter in place is what happens when the attackers get smart. When the gunner finds a roomful of kids, sheltering in place, it’s a target-rich environment. And the only opportunity the victims have to to overcome the shooter is the reload process. Fortunately Adam Lanza had no buddy to cover him. If there were a pair of Adam Lanzas, or a pair of Fort Hood shooters then things might have proven more difficult.” Convoy to Scatter

The Left lives in utopian society that exists only in their minds. Emphasis mine. “’It’s now time for the United States to walk the walk and demonstrate to the world that while the Internet was a product of American genius, no government or intergovernmental organization should control its future,’ Rep. Anna Eshoo, the subcommittee’s top Democrat, said Wednesday. Rep. Henry Waxman, the top Democrat on the full Energy and Commerce Committee, argued that the administration’s plan is in line with a resolution that Congress unanimously passed in 2012, announcing support for an Internet free from government control. Strickling promised that the U.S. government will not give up its authority over ICANN until the nonprofit group produces a credible plan for how it will manage the Internet’s address functions going forward. Any plan that would give authority to other governments or intergovernmental organizations would be a nonstarter, he said. He argued that the transition will actually build trust in the multi-stakeholder model, which will help to undermine any foreign attempts to gain Internet power through the United Nations or other avenues. “Taking this action is the best measure to prevent authoritarian regimes from expanding their restrictive policies beyond their own borders,” Strickling said.” Republicans Fear Obama Will Let Russia Seize Internet Power: The administration insists no government will gain new influence over the Internet.

Charles Koch for president! “A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value. In a truly free society, any business that disrespects its customers will fail, and deserves to do so. The same should be true of any government that disrespects its citizens. The central belief and fatal conceit of the current administration is that you are incapable of running your own life, but those in power are capable of running it for you. This is the essence of big government and collectivism.” Koch: I’m Fighting to Restore a Free Society: Instead of welcoming free debate, collectivists engage in character assassination.

Remember folks, we have over 1,000 more days with this man as our president. It ain’t going to be a pretty, and I am not sure that all the havoc he is reeking can be undone. “’I therefore regard this new policy as an effort on the part of your administration to implement the treaty without obtaining the advice and consent of the Senate. I do not regard this policy as required by the treaty’s object and purpose: I view it as a voluntary effort to implement the treaty. I am disturbed both by the secrecy of the process that produced this new policy and the disregard it shows for the role of the Senate, in particular. I therefore call upon you to withdraw this policy and to consult fully with relevant committees and concerned offices as you revise it.’” Senator Accuses Obama of Trying to Implement UN Arms Trade Treaty Without Congress

Watch the video. Fallon hits Obamacare pretty hard. “When Jay Leno left the Tonight Show on NBC, some wondered whether the show would still target the Obama administration for its satirical look at current events. At least last night, new host Jimmy Fallon provided an answer. After Barack Obama took a victory lap with the announcement of 7.1 million enrollments through the system by its March 31st deadline, Fallon responded by noting that ‘it’s amazing what you can achieve when you make something mandatory, and fine people if they don’t do it — and keep extending the deadline for months.’” Video: Fallon rips ObamaCare victory lap by White House

Benghazi

I hope and pray the truth eventually comes out, and as a result, Hillary’s presidential aspirations are toast. “Sources on the ground in Benghazi during the 2012 terror attack are pushing back hard on former CIA acting director Mike Morell’s testimony on Capitol Hill, where he defended his role in shaping the administration’s narrative and claimed politics were not involved. [Snip] The account has many close to this investigation fuming. One operator watching the hearing told Fox News: “He doesn’t have any idea what happened that night. Why is he speculating? He wouldn’t have to speculate if he talked to the people in Libya that night, or others who were watching.” Another said Morell either still has no idea what happened that night, or he is covering for someone. “Human intelligence takes precedence over everything else and he had no better intelligence than multiple reports from credible sources coming from the ground that night,” one operator said.” Sources on ground during Benghazi attack slam ex-CIA boss Morell’s testimony

Hillary should never be president. This is why. And also why many on the Left are calling Benghazi a “phony scandal.” “1. CIA station chief in Benghazi, Libya told CIA that the al-Qaeda-linked attack was not the product of a spontaneous protest; 2. Morell, then the deputy CIA director, said Wednesday that he overruled that report and sided with analysts who weren’t there when editing talking points
He insisted that ‘none of our actions were the result of political influence. None,’ but sent the talking points to the White House for ‘final coordination;’ 3) Morell left the CIA in 2013 and joined a Washington, D.C. consultancy co-founded by the principal gatekeeper to Hillary Clinton; 4) Benghazi is seen as a major failure of the Clinton-led State Department, and a potential albatross hampering her 2016 presidential aspirations” Former deputy CIA director denies being part of politically driven Benghazi cover-up as his ties to Hillary Clinton are revealed

California

Gatekeepers—the elites got theirs, and that’s where they want it to stop. “Big money is supposed to be bad for politics. But no money plays a bigger role in influencing policy than California’s progressive cash, from Hollywood to Silicon Valley. Billionaire hedge-fund operator Tom Steyer is canonized, but he is on track to rival the oft-demonized Koch brothers in the amount of money he has spent on influencing policymakers and getting his type of politicians elected. Nowhere are there more Mercedes and BMWs per capita than in California’s tony coastal enclaves. And nowhere will you find more anti-carbon activism or more restrictive laws against new oil production that ensure the highest gasoline prices in the continental United States for the less well-off. [Snip] Professing that you are progressive can be wise California politics. It means you sound too caring ever to do bad things, while the costly consequences of your ideology usually fall on someone else. And that someone is usually less hip, less wealthy, and less powerful.” Golden State Hypocrisy: One California for me, another for thee

The ‘smartest man in the room’ comes falling back to earth. “A generous evaluation of Kerry’s actions might merely ascribe this to a string of bad luck. But luck has nothing to do with it. The common thread between these various diplomatic dead-ends isn’t that small-minded and recalcitrant foreign leaders thwarted Kerry’s bold initiatives. It’s that in all these situations, Kerry believed the force of his personality and his tenacity was equal to the task of solving problems that had flummoxed all of his predecessors. Aaron David Miller perceptively wrote last fall at a moment when Kerry’s fortunes seemed to be on the rise, “Rarely have I encountered anyone — let alone a secretary of state — who seemed more self-confident about his own point of view and not all that interested in somebody else’s.” It was this hubris that has led to his current humiliation.” Kerry’s Hubris Leads to a Great Fall

First Amendment

A victory for free speech. “The Supreme Court took another step toward protecting political speech Tuesday by rejecting arbitrary campaign-finance restrictions. In McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Court struck down an aggregate limit Americans can contribute to political figures during an election cycle. It all began when the plaintiff in McCutcheon v. FEC, Shaun McCutcheon, expressed interest in contributing $1,776 to a number of candidates he supported. Contributions to candidates are already limited to $2,600 per election, so it appeared he was well within the law. However, beyond the limits on giving to any individual candidate, McCutcheon learned that the law limited the total amount he could give to all candidates to $48,600. This meant that McCutcheon could make his desired contribution of $1,776 to just 27 candidates — or just 13 if he wanted to contribute that amount in both the primary and general elections. And if McCutcheon wanted to contribute the legal maximum of $2,600 in each election — or $5,200 per candidate, combining primary and general elections — he could support only nine candidates. McCutcheon challenged the law on the eminently sensible grounds that if Congress has deemed a contribution of $2,600 per election ($5,200 per cycle) to be a non-corrupting amount, then Candidate 10 was no more corrupted by the contribution than Candidate 9. Simply put, the aggregate limits served no anti-corruption interest. And the Court has long held that ‘the concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment.’” Free Speech at Last: McCutcheon Decision Just Right: Individual free speech saved from infringements.

A narrow victory. “The McCutcheon case, like so many politically charged cases, came down to a 5–4 decision, with the so-called liberals on the Court staunchly defending the illiberal position. Which is to say, our First Amendment freedoms are one black-robed vote away from being made contingent upon the political whims of the very people in Washington against whom the Bill of Rights is designed to protect us. The Senate, and thus the fate of any Supreme Court nominations that might be made between now and the end of the lawless presidency of Barack Obama, is in the hands of those who would limit our First Amendment liberties, from free speech to the free exercise of religion. There is an opportunity to change that this year, and it is worth remembering exactly who it is who wants to exercise police control over the means of political speech.” The First Amendment Wins

They haven’t forgotten. They just want the low information voters to think that only the Republicans have money. “Opponents of the ruling — mostly on the left — forget that they have their own billionaire donors (Tom Steyer, George Soros, etc.) that will benefit from this ruling.” The Supreme Court campaign finance decision for dummies

Government Motors

I like the way he thinks. “David Harsanyi, writing at The Federalist, asks some embarrassing questions for the government that bailed out GM:

Before plowing billions of tax dollars into saving the United Automobile Workers, did the Car Czar or any other Obama officials take extra care to review DOT records to insure that taxpayers would not be funding the preventable deaths of American citizens? (snip)

… surely the possibility of this kind of negligence is worth a look. Can anyone with access to the administration ask some of these questions? Because if you take credit for “saving” a company (actually, an “industry,” as no one would ever driven again if Obama hadn’t saved the day) you also get credit for “saving” the real-life unscrupulous version of the company.” The Government Motors scandal deepens

The Left

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that for the Left equality is a ruse for control. “If a famine befell us and you couldn’t save everyone, would you withhold the food you had and let every citizen starve rather than endure the inequality of just saving some? If recent history is any guide, certain leftists just might say yes. A good example of this phenomenon was a multiple sclerosis patient in Gothenburg, Sweden, who was denied a more effective and expensive medication — even though he was willing to pay for it — because, wrote columnist Walter Williams in 2009, “bureaucrats said it would set a bad precedent and lead to unequal access to medicine.” No wonder Winston Churchill said that socialism’s “inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.’” Equality Fever: Turning the Tables on the Left

The Media

Emphasis mine. “Bryan Preston notes that CNN has the same attitude towards this story as the unabashed, openly partisan Democratic cheerleaders at MSNBC, and that should bother them. But it doesn’t. So much for CNN’s pretense of being about news, rather than partisanship. At Forbes, a contributor writes of the perils of absolute power — which Democrats possessin California.

Democrat leaders in California today are so well ensconced in power, so very insulated from scrutiny or criticism, that not only is there corruption in their ranks – they are hardly moved by that corruption.Indeed, for months California Democrats have had to deal with the fraud conviction of State Senator Roderick Wright. He was caught lying about his address so he could get elected in a certain district. He could face 8 years in prison. A month later, another Democrat Senator, Ronald Calderon, was indicted on serious public corruption charges.

You would think a responsible party would do all they could to distance themselves from such corrupt politicians. Despite Republican attempts to expel them from the Senate, however, on a party line vote Democrats blocked that effort.

Of course, the reason the Democrats did that was to protect their super-majority in the Senate, which allows them to pass tax legislation without a single Republican vote. In other words, having absolute power is more important to them than any semblance of integrity.

Then came along Democrat Senator Leland Yee from San Francisco. He has been indicted on charges that are almost too wild to fathom including attempting to facilitate arms sales to a terrorist group. The allegations read like a bad movie and perhaps some day there will be a movie. In the face of that horrific – and impossible to ignore – publicity, the Democrats finally took some action.

Shhhhh. It’s happening under Obama so we have to keep this quiet. “A sense of belonging to the middle class occupies a cherished place in America. It conjures images of self-sufficient people with stable jobs and pleasant homes working toward prosperity.Yet nearly five years after the Great Recession ended, more people are coming to the painful realization that they’re no longer part of it. They are former professionals now stocking shelves at grocery stores, retirees struggling with rising costs and people working part-time jobs but desperate for full-time pay. Such setbacks have emerged in economic statistics for several years. Now they’re affecting how Americans think of themselves.” More Americans see middle class status slipping

Obamacare

When a “law of the land” can continue to be broken so many times, is it still really a law? “Former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs doesn’t think Obamacare’s employer mandate will survive. Speaking before a benefits industry trade association, Gibbs surprised the audience by predicting that the mandate, which forces businesses with more than 50 employees to offer insurance or pay a fine, would be one of the first things to go if Obamacare is tweaked. [Snip] What Gibbs doesn’t mention is how many employers would drop insurance coverage for employees if the fine was cheaper than insuring them. The CBO estimates that millions of employees would be forced to purchase insurance through the Obamacare exchanges if the employer mandate takes effect. But Obama pushed the deadline back to January, 2015 for companies with more than 100 employees and to 2016 for those with between 50-99 employees. With no threat of fine, will more employers cancel their employee insurance plans? Given what we know about the cost of Obamacare policies, this is not improbable. Would the president simply issue another executive order cancelling the mandate? If he can delay it, he may think he can cancel it. And if he does, what can Congress do about it? About as much as they’ve done with the dozens of other executive orders that have altered Obamacare.” Former Obama official: Employer mandate won’t happen

Leftist haters always gotta hate: Speaking truth to power about the un-affordability of it all results in her family being deluged with hate mail. “The Wendts were paying $221 a month to cover their family of seven. They are now paying a monthly premium of $381 under a temporary stop-gap plan that will be canceled next year, when the family is forced by law to register for an Obamacare plan. Under this new plan, the family will be forced to pay around $24,000 a year, nearly double the cost of the $12,000 they pay under their current plan, Wendt said. “Now it’s four times the premium we were paying last year and the out of pocket liability is double,” Wendt said.” Mother of Five: Obamacare Jeopardizing My Family’s Financial Future: Getting hate mail, called ‘lying bitch’ by Obamacare supporters

Obamacare is a job killer. “Tevi concludes that “these data demonstrate that the added mandates, fees and regulatory burdens associated with the ACA are increasing the cost of employer-sponsored health care plans, with implications for both employers and employees.” I’ll say. Staffing decisions will, of course, be among the “implications.” If the estimates contained in the AHPI study are even close to accurate, Obamacare will likely prove to be a significant job-killer.” The Staggering Cost of Obamacare

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!